


On the edge of consciousness

by sshysmm



Category: Lymond Chronicles - Dorothy Dunnett
Genre: Book 4: Pawn in Frankincense, Extended Scene, Ficlet, Gen, Getting the heck out of Zuara, Injury, M/M, Prompt Fill, Swimming, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-30
Updated: 2019-12-30
Packaged: 2021-02-27 05:34:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 615
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22031893
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sshysmm/pseuds/sshysmm
Summary: For the prompt 'on the edge of consciousness'. Jerott and Lymond make their escape from the disaster at Zuara, struggling through injury and the aftermath of the confrontation with Gabriel.Originally posted on tumblr.
Relationships: Jerott Blyth & Francis Crawford of Lymond and Sevigny, Jerott Blyth/Francis Crawford of Lymond and Sevigny
Kudos: 10





	On the edge of consciousness

The little row-boat rolled and bobbed, but Jerott managed to get one arm over its edge. Its last oarsman was dead, his body sprawled against the bulwark, arrows blooming from a stained cross on his chest. Jerott did not know him.

He gasped through the warm Mediterranean water that streamed from his hair and coated his lips in accompaniment to each playful slap of water against the boat's side. The arm he had over the wooden caprail had begun to shake, and cold was seeping into his extremities as shock battled with the strictures of training. Still, he would not release his hold on the other man whose body trod the purple water next to him.

Lymond was fully conscious, but the distant look of horror remained in his wide eyes, and Jerott's fingers clasped bruisingly around his arm lest he disappear beneath the surface again. Gripping with two pale hands onto the same side of the boat, Lymond seemed oblivious to Jerott's fierce grasp. His hair, run through by the wine-dark sea, clung to his skull and neck like a cap, and he shivered as violently as Jerott's right arm. Exhausted, he was lost in a vision of calamity.

"You get in first," Jerott told him, shifting his hold to encourage Lymond to heave himself on board.

His lips moved silently, once - _O mill..._ \- and then Lymond's sharp jaw was set and he pulled himself up, tearing free of Jerott's hand, sending the boat into a riot of movement. It jinked and rocked, and Jerott clung to it with his damaged arm as Lymond's escape from the sea unleashed a new assault of saltwater on his face and head. Lymond's lithe form shimmied over the bulwark without trouble, his sodden, ruined leather boots finally flicking over the edge like the tail of a cetacean in a dive.

It felt like victory, to know that Gabriel was dead and Francis was alive. Lymond was safe, for now, in a vessel and fit to leave the bloody shores of Zuara behind - that _was_ a victory.

The thought made Jerott breathe easy. His fists unfurled and his eyelids drooped as the water rolled beneath him, the waves buffeting his body in rhythmic insistence. He had deferred acknowledgement of the pain in his wrist through the battle and the rescue, and now it came back with its gnawing teeth, agony like poison in his bones, or fire that spread to blaze in his shoulder and elbow as they worked to compensate for the weakened wrist.

He slipped, and took a mouthful of sea as his chin fell beneath the waterline.

"No you don't." Coming from above, Lymond's voice sounded low and angry. Sharp fingers hooked into Jerott's sodden clothes, scrabbling for purchase.

Jerott grimaced, but this new discomfort drove back the black that had been edging in on his vision. He shook his hair from his face and got both arms secure on the caprail. His powerful legs kicked and Lymond's wiry strength pulled at his shirt and back until Jerott fell unceremoniously onto the deck.

He rolled aside but the deck was small, and the corpse of the other man was already rigid. Gasping, with Lymond's fingers still tangled in the wet cotton of his shirt, Jerott lay between the dead soldier's feet and Lymond's warm, rising chest. He blinked, and opening his eyes afterwards seemed like the hardest thing in the world. Above him the sky was the colour the sea had been: soft as royal velvet, sprinkled with stars like precious jewels. On the edge of consciousness, Jerott turned his face against Lymond's chest and listened to the other man's heart galloping like a charger.


End file.
